Architecture - St Petersburg - page 428

the higher ground of Admiralty Island. Menshikov Palace ( CLICK HERE ) was the
finest in the city, and far grander than Peter's Winter Palace ( CLICK HERE ).

THE AGE OF RASTRELLI
Empress Anna oversaw the completion of many of Peter's
unfinished projects, including the Kunstkamera ( CLICK
HERE ) and Twelve Colleges ( CLICK HERE ). Most signi-
ficantly, she hired Italian Bartolomeo Rastrelli as chief ar-
chitect, a decision that more than any other influenced the
city's look today. His major projects under Anna's reign
were the Manege Central Exhibition Hall ( CLICK HERE )
and the Third Summer Palace (since destroyed). Rastrelli's
greatest work, however, was yet to come.

Top Five Archi-
tectural Sights

Winter Palace (Her-
mitage, Historic Heart)

Mariinsky Second
Stage (Kolomna)

Chesme Church
(southern St Peters-
burg)

Anna left her mark on the face of St Petersburg in many
ways. She ordered all nobles to pave the street in front of
their properties, thus ensuring the reinforcement of the Neva
Embankment and other major thoroughfares. A massive fire
in 1737 wiped out the unsightly and run-down wooden
housing that surrounded the Winter Palace, thus freeing the
historic centre for the centralised city planning that would
be implemented under Elizabeth.

Smolny Cathedral
(Smolny)

House of Soviets
(southern St Peters-
burg)

Elizabethan St Petersburg was almost entirely the work of Rastrelli, whose Russian
baroque style became synonymous with the city. His crowning glory, of course, was
the construction and remodelling of the Winter Palace ( CLICK HERE ), completed in
1762, shortly after Elizabeth's death.

Rastrelli's second major landmark was Anichkov Palace ( CLICK HERE ). After
that creation, he became the city's most fashionable architect. Commissions soon fol-
lowed to build Stroganov Palace ( CLICK HERE ), Vorontsov Palace ( CLICK HERE ),
Kamennoostrovsky Palace ( CLICK HERE ), Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo (
CLICK HERE ) and the extension of LeBlond's Grand Palace at Peterhof ( CLICK
HERE ). The sumptuous Smolny Cathedral ( CLICK HERE ) is another Rastrelli land-
mark. His original design included a massive bell tower that would have been the
tallest structure in Russia. The death of Empress Elizabeth in 1761 prevented him
from completing it.